


all the power in me moves

by gearsystem



Series: Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace [3]
Category: Black Sails, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Communication, Emotional Sex, First Time, M/M, sex by the fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27879317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gearsystem/pseuds/gearsystem
Summary: This takes place after the love confession scene after Chapter 34 of Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace.Title based on the song Two Men in Love by The Irrepressibles. Super recommend listening to that song while reading this.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Sherlock Holmes and the Lord in Disgrace [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984079
Kudos: 17





	all the power in me moves

The first night in their new home, far away from Baker Street and the lives led within the pages of the Strand Magazine, Sherlock Holmes looked at the happiness lining John Watson’s face. He traced a finger along his jaw, his cheek, mapping the outline of the features he was getting to know in this new context. The two men were silent for some moments, exchanging breath and touch as if it were limited currency. 

“John…” Sherlock spoke out in the hush. “Shall we explore this place we now call home?”

John reached down to interlock his fingers with Sherlock’s, and offered him a warm smile. 

“Yes, I think we shall.”

The men stood, and turned on one light in the hall to the bedrooms, both furnished with simple double beds and wardrobes. John looked up to the man beside him with a quizzical expression.

“Should we—?” He was interrupted by a forefinger placed, delicate, upon his lips.

“I think, tonight, both of us should move past any propriety we may have held before. Tell me what you want, John.” A heat crept up on Sherlock’s cheeks at his own words. Thankfully, the colour forming on John’s face soothed any fear Sherlock may have had about his own response.

“First and foremost, we are in need of a bath.” He was not wrong. After all, the both of them had spent far too many hours entrenched in mud, soot, and blood from all angles. In the faint oil light, the dust along their faces was much more visible than it had been before. 

“I am inclined to agree with you,” Sherlock replied. 

In a few minutes, they had procured a bath basin left in one of the bedrooms, a barrel of water left to them by Mary and Miranda, a bar of soap, and an already prepared collection of wood and kindling in the fireplace. They warmed the water in haste, and by the time it had reached an acceptable temperature, the men had only just come to understand what boundary was about to be crossed. 

Sherlock turned to John then, and saw the battle behind his eyes as the bedroom’s oil light flickered nearby. 

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asked, though it felt foolish as soon as he spoke. They had shared a home together for almost a decade in the past, and were no strangers to bathing in close quarters, but there was a significance to this moment that was impossible to deny. Was he allowed, now, to cross the lines placed in arbitration so many years before?

“Yes, are you?” John’s voice was tender in a manner Sherlock was still acclimatising himself to. He stepped closer to his friend and took a breath inward. Was he all right? He had not thought to be anything other than that, not when John looked at him in the way he was. Even as his aging bones ached beneath the tasks of recent days, no complaint about such things crossed his mind. 

“Without a doubt. May I remove your coat, John?” Sherlock placed a tentative hand upon his shoulder, then, awaiting an answer.

“Of course.” The smile that spread across his cheeks then was so bright, Sherlock thought he may well be blinded. He could not help but return the expression, eyes locked on John’s. “May I remove yours?”

Sherlock nodded with compliance as he removed the layer of clothing from John’s torso. It was no more than a simple outer cover, and yet he knew what implications lay beneath it. This was not the removal of a jacket, or the aiding of an injured friend into a warm bath. This was a delicate dance of affection and intimacy that neither man had dared explore before this very moment. This action, and every action to follow it, was an act of devotion.

As they discarded the opposite man’s coats to some distant place upon the rug, there was another pair of inhalations and exhalations. Sherlock inched closer to John, still hesitant but daring all the same. John accepted the closeness with a hand to Sherlock’s waist that nearly made him jump.

“I believe,” John whispered, alerting Sherlock to just how close they had become, “we should be a bit more hasty, given the hour.” Sherlock felt his face heat up at that, his cheeks betraying just how little composure he now maintained.

“Yes, quite right,” Sherlock muttered, reaching for his own waist coat. He could scarcely breathe at a reasonable pace, but he attempted to undo the buttons as quick as possible. By the time he reached the third one, he felt a warm hand touch his. 

“Would you allow me to help?” 

How he managed to remain standing was unknown to Sherlock at this stage, but he willed himself to nod in agreement as he attempted to steady his breaths. John made agile work of the waist coat, tossing it away with the jackets. He settled a hand on Sherlock’s chest, then, with just a shirt and thin shift underneath. Even beside the warmth of the fire, John’s touch was exhilarating in a way he never thought possible. 

“Your shirt, now, Sherlock,” he murmured. “May I?”

“Yes.”

John took deliberate care with each fastener, his steady hands keeping Sherlock afloat, and before long, both remaining layers on his torso had been discarded.

“Sherlock,” John whispered with reverence. There was something else in his words, though, as he looked at Sherlock’s bare chest. An intense affection followed by what Sherlock could only describe as concern. It was in that moment that Sherlock remembered how many battles he had fought in the last ten years. Whether knives, guns, or fists, there was no shortage of squabbles he had found himself in, even more so since taking on Thomas’ work. The scars of these battles lined his body as a tactile history, and John had never studied such a tale. In a panic, he looked down to see the worry lining John’s face, eager to stop it at all costs.

“I—I’m sorry, allow me to—” he stammered, desperate to take them back to a time before the raised scars across his chest and stomach were visible to John’s all too caring gaze. 

He was interrupted in his blunder by two arms wrapping themselves around him, and a wetness against his shoulder where John’s head now lay.

“Forgive me for not protecting you well enough,” John pleaded. 

“What?”

John looked back up at him again, tears tracking down his cheeks in silence. 

“I should have prevented—I should have been there. I am your  _ doctor. _ ” John wept against Sherlock’s skin with shaky, uneven breaths. To say he was speechless would have been an understatement. Never once in his many years accumulating such marks would he have thought them to be the fault of John, or an indication of a lack of his protection. They were either marks of a worthy cause, or of a case gone wrong. If anyone were at fault for such things, it would be himself, not the man who touched him with nothing but kindness. 

“You are a fool, John. An utter fool,” Sherlock said, burying his face in John’s hair, disbelieving of the position they found themselves in. 

“I know,” he said, wiping away the tears from his eyes. “I apologise for the outburst, I… was unprepared for this.” Sherlock saw a rigidity return to John’s form, as though compensating for an image or expectation he thought to maintain. Had his words led him to believe that he was upset with him for reacting to the scars in this way?

“John, look at me.” He pushed John off him just enough to meet his gaze, and held his shoulders in his grasp.

“Do not mind me, it is nothing,” he dismissed further, and Sherlock felt a white hot intensity burn through his chest. 

“John, no. You are misunderstanding my words, and I refuse to have you in such a state on a night like this.” At this, John’s face changed to one of bewilderment, but he remained in Sherlock’s firm grip nonetheless. “It is not a fault of yours that such scars mark me. Quite the contrary, it is a natural result of a life such as mine. Helpless criminals, confused informants, even nefarious professors, all of them are the cause beneath these old wounds. I would have gained them regardless of your efforts, whether as my doctor, friend, or anything else. Many regrets weave themselves through these wounds, John, but not one of them reads your name.”

Now, it was John’s turn to be without words. A shuddering breath passed through him, and before he knew it, Sherlock was leaving a kiss upon his forehead. A few silent moments flew by as they stood in each other’s arms, before a shudder came over Sherlock from the draft.

“Oh,” John started. “Come, now, get in.” He gestured to the tub filled with a small amount of warmed water, and Sherlock removed his trousers and drawers in a swift motion. For a moment, he thought he caught John’s gaze lingering a bit longer on his derobed form, but it may have been a trick of the light. He stepped into the tub and sat down as John pulled a wooden chair from the writing desk along the opposite wall. 

John took care to wash away all of the soot, blood, and other grime from Sherlock’s body with a gentle, but firm touch. They did not exchange many words between one another, save for the off hand instruction of  _ lift your arm,  _ or  _ turn around,  _ but the simple actions maintained a magnitude of emotion all the same. 

As Sherlock became completely clean, John greeted him with a warm towel procured from the linen closet in the hall, and wrapped him up. It seemed that Mary and Miranda had stocked the bedroom they occupied with Sherlock’s belongings, whilst the other held John’s, so John gathered a dressing gown for each of them before returning to Sherlock’s side. John bathed next, Sherlock’s cautious hands wiping away the reminders of the last days of battle. He took care to be delicate around the still raw wound on his thigh.

The oil lamp was put out at one point or another, and the sole light that remained was emanating from the hearth. As the fire flickered before them, their hair damp and cotton clinging to their skin, the world outside the room seemed to shrink.

Sherlock turned to look at the man beside him as the flames danced along their faces. The blue in John’s eyes was replaced with a reflection of the reds and yellows before them, and it made a faint glow surround him. Before he could help it, Sherlock’s hand was on his cheek, tracing the smile lines and other familiar, yet previously distant, marks of age upon John’s face. He wished to know them as he knew the art of detection, or the formulas of chemistry—as intimate and recognisable as the things he studied everyday of his life. Perhaps he would soon enough.

“Sherlock…” John murmured, and the way he said his name made Sherlock feel heavy in the best way. No one else in the world spoke those syllables the way John did, no person cherished them in their steady hands quite the same. He wanted to hear him say it again and again, until the name no longer sounded like a word at all, but a prayer to be heard by Sherlock’s ears alone.

“Kiss me?” 

John obliged with a vigour not before felt in the tender care he took with washing away the soot from Sherlock’s skin. Now, delicacy be damned, John gripped the collar of Sherlock’s dressing gown as he crushed their lips together, as though desperate for air found solely within his lover’s lungs. 

Was that what they were to one another now? Lovers? Other past terms seemed ill fitted in the face of such unbridled affection; colleague was laughable, friend was too subdued. As John’s fingers traversed down the exposed portion of his chest, Sherlock wanted to brandish the word  _ lover  _ onto his very bones.

“John,” Sherlock huffed, reaching to unfasten the silk rope around his middle. “Take me to bed.”

The fire raged in John’s eyes then, and nodded through a shaky exhale. He removed the dressing gown from Sherlock’s shoulders before making fast work of his own, throwing them to some unseen place upon the floor. As they sat before one another, naked of all the boundaries once placed so crudely between them, Sherlock could not keep himself from leaning toward John’s light. 

John inched closer to him, caution still evident in his every movement, and Sherlock could not stand to see such hesitation any longer.

Sherlock reached a hand out to touch John’s chin, gesturing his head up to meet his eyes. It was John’s turn to speak, to move, to continue, and an ancient, young hope rattled in Sherlock’s heart.

“Shall we… lie down, then?” John asked, his voice close to a whisper.

“Yes, I think we shall.” Sherlock mirrored John’s reply from the sitting room, which felt hours, days away from where they were now. His lover appeared unaware of the repetition, though, blinded by the desire Sherlock saw clearly in his gaze now.

The two of them moved toward the headboard then, stealing glances at the other and catching some looks halfway with a grin. After a moment, they found themselves lying across from one another on the bed, laid bare beneath the forgiving glow of the flames. 

A brief apprehensive feeling spread through Sherlock’s chest at the thought of how to move forward from here. Despite the ease he found in John’s presence, he wanted this moment to be perfect—to be just as John deserved. He placed a tentative hand on the mattress in the space between them and closed his eyes for a second. The warmth of John’s hand was all he could feel upon him before he opened his eyes again.

“You seemed to be fading a bit, there,” he said. Sherlock responded by taking their joined hands to his lips, kissing along the knuckles of John’s calloused hand. 

“Would you like to pull me back to earth, John?”

He did not answer with words, but with another meeting of lips to lips. John touched along Sherlock’s side before holding him at the small of his back, bringing them all that much closer together. A small sound fell from Sherlock’s mouth, betraying any facade of composure he may have wished to maintain. They remained like that for many heated moments before John pulled back ever so slightly.

“May I touch you, Sherlock?”

“Please,” was all he could say. At that, John pushed Sherlock onto his back and moved his leg over him. He began to bring his lips to his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, as though every inch of him was to be cherished in equal measure. John traced his lips down the expanse of his chest, placing gentle kisses in a vertical trail. As he reached the most intimate part of Sherlock, they both inhaled with the tension of it. A silent tilt of his head, a nod in response, and then the ever-whirring spell of thoughts in Sherlock’s mind went blank.

John’s mouth moved in deliberate motions at first. While the attentiveness of before was welcomed, an impatient  _ pang  _ was felt in Sherlock’s chest from the careful movement of his tongue. He did not want John to be careful with him, treating him as a breakable object to be protected. Not anymore, at least. He had waited far too long for this moment, and gentle only went so far as to satiate the want coursing through him.

“More, John,” he said, running his hands through his damp—and rather unkempt—hair. Despite his mouth being occupied, John understood, and increased his speed and intensity. A moan emerged from Sherlock’s lips at that, and his other hand gripped the bed linens.

John smiled at the weight of Sherlock on his tongue, and continued working his lips along him with a singular devotion until Sherlock cried pleasure under his touch. Before he could fully reach a state of bliss, however, John removed himself, and looked up at his lover, breathless. As Sherlock saw the faint light on his reddened cheeks, and the wet lips curved into a smile, he could not stop himself.

“You are beautiful, John.”

His smile widened further at that, before moving up toward Sherlock to meet their lips together again. Sherlock tasted himself on John’s tongue, and felt somewhat faint at the thought of it. 

“Would you like to turn over?” John whispered against Sherlock’s cheek. He turned himself onto his stomach, and looked back at the gorgeous man above him, waiting.

Much the same as with his chest, John trailed his fingers—and mouth—along his back with care. This time, however, as his lips reached the curve of intimate skin, the same intensity from a moment ago returned to him. With his grip firm on Sherlock, he spread the vulnerable space to give way to his tongue yet again. He worked the tight muscle, and a loud shout emerged from Sherlock at the new sensation. After a few moments of this, just as Sherlock adjusted to the gentle scratch of John’s moustache along the tender skin, the feeling vanished.

“Do you want me inside you, Sherlock?” The reverie in his tone, despite how crude the question was, made Sherlock’s heart twist in his chest. A soft digit traced around his entrance, waiting.

“Yes, John.”

A slow, wet finger entered him, careful now but with better reason. Sherlock felt each knuckle, every inch of him, and allowed an obscene moan to fall from his lips at the closeness of it.

John hooked his finger ever so slightly, and another shout came over Sherlock at the new feeling. John added another digit, as gentle as the first, but increased the tempo a bit then. It was gradual, but necessary all the same. Sherlock felt sounds emerge from him at the repetitive movement, and when a third finger entered him, he could not stand it anymore.

“Please, I want  _ you.”  _ He did not need to specify, then, what it was he was asking for. John leaned over his back, kissing him with a grin. He increased the speed of his hand for a moment, spreading his fingers and eliciting another vulgar groan from Sherlock. But, he listened, and removed himself, slow as before. 

Sherlock looked back to see how his lover’s ministrations had affected the man performing them, to find that his response was rather enthusiastic. John was not poorly endowed, and Sherlock watched with intent as he returned to him, spitting into his palm before stroking himself while touching Sherlock with his free hand. Something about it made Sherlock realise that he had no intentions of missing any part of this night. He wanted, more than anything, to watch the change in John’s expression as their bodies met, and this was his chance to voice it.

“Could we… face one another?” John snapped his head up to his, and smiled. 

“Of course we can,” he affirmed, before helping Sherlock turn over again. “I did not know you were such a romantic.”

“Perhaps it is one of these new things you have to learn about me,” Sherlock replied, noticing his flirtation as it was spoken. Heat passed through him again, and then John’s fingers returned to his entrance for a brief moment—as though to ensure he was well prepared. With another spit to the palm, John ran his fingers along himself before moving Sherlock’s legs up toward his chest. He positioned himself, legs spread on either side of him, and while looking Sherlock in the eyes, he pushed in, slowly. 

A guttural moan came from Sherlock’s throat as John pushed into him. Once he was seated, they breathed in the stillness for a moment. Sherlock couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of it all; that it took them twenty foolish years to get to this point of intimacy.

He may have thought about it more, if John had not started to move. They moved together somewhat, and on one definitive thrust inward, John leant down to meet his lips to Sherlock’s. The quiet delicacy of their conversation on the sofa or their shared baths was now replaced with an unstoppable  _ need  _ Sherlock felt through his very core. He wanted to be one with him now, and would do anything in his power to make it so. He wrapped his legs around John’s waist, urging him ever closer, to which John complied, and increased the speed of his thrusts.

“John—” Sherlock panted through lost breath, holding him closer, closer.

“Sherlock—God—” John moaned into the space between them before drawing Sherlock into another kiss of panting, teeth, and desperation. Moving together as if parts of the same whole, they whispered names of a newly discovered gravity. 

When John reached one hand down to touch Sherlock in time with their movement, neither of them could take it anymore.

“P-Please, John. Please—” Cut off by another obscene shout. “I love you. I love you.”

“Let go, my love,” John whispered to his ear. 

With one final thrust, deep into him, bliss overcame the both of them. A singular moment where both men were no longer individual in their bodies, their love, their existence. Sherlock curled inward, pulling John to his heart as though he could not belong elsewhere. John moved with him, curling around Sherlock’s angular form as if all the twists of his body were born to fit within his. 

John collapsed onto Sherlock’s chest, moving his hand out from under him. For a moment, neither of them spoke or moved, save to breathe. John was still inside him, a comforting presence as the significance of the evening settled within them. 

“I love you,” John whispered into Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock noticed him stir for a moment, as if to remove himself from him, and something guttural forced him to tighten his grip around John’s hips. His legs held him in place, unwilling to become separate quite yet.

“Stay a moment?” he asked as John looked down at him with a vague, gentle confusion. 

“Oh, of course,” John agreed, any inquisitiveness too complex to maintain with the exhaustion now taking over. 

They lay like that for a few brief minutes—too brief in Sherlock’s opinion—before John slipped out of Sherlock, now soft. The smallest shudder came over them both as it happened. John placed a kiss to his lover’s shoulder, glinting with sweat rather than water, before moving to stand.

Sherlock observed as he carefully removed himself, just so, before he walked to the hallway cupboard to retrieve a cloth. He cleaned up the both of them, placed the cloth upon the nightstand, and lay down again next to Sherlock with a broad, content smile on his face.

* * *

“Do you think they knew?” John asked, moments later when they settled beneath the covers and put out the fire.

“To what ‘they’ do you refer?”

“Mary and Miranda. I know Mary was well aware of my affections for you, but I did not think she knew of how you felt. Do you think they furnished and decorated this place with the knowledge that we may just sort this out?” Sherlock watched the outline of John’s musing expression in the darkness, and admired how the moonlight shone in the whites of his eyes. 

“I would not put such intuition past them. They are intelligent women, after all. Do you believe James and Thomas will be surprised?” Sherlock traced his fingers up and down the length of John’s arm thoughtlessly as he spoke. To touch him with such a casual air about him felt miraculous in its simplicity. 

“I would say a firm ‘no.’ Thomas seemed to know within one week of meeting me, and James is quite responsible for our conversation earlier if I am being truthful.” 

“Oh? And how did he manage that?”

“He told me that you were in love with me, and that I was a fool for not seeing as much. In a matter of words, at least.”

Sherlock hummed, placing a kiss upon John’s forehead. “I am glad to see that I could not deceive him even now,” he said. A small laugh fell from his lips, then, as a memory returned to his mind. “I was endlessly envious of the both of them, all those years ago. I was convinced you were in love with them.”

John couldn’t help but laugh, then, clutching onto Sherlock in his own amusement. “Of course I was not! Dear Lord, that is absurd. If nothing else, Thomas reminded me of you.” 

“Quite right. And how, pray, did he do that?” A grin formed across Sherlock’s lips, chest warming at the comparison.

“The both of you have quite the disinterest in propriety of any sort, you are rather insistent in your views on the world, and—it seems—you are both the most dramatic men I have ever met.”

“Is there an implication in your words, Doctor Watson?” Sherlock attempted to sound scandalised, but in his exhaustion and adoration, it came out as nothing but flirtatious. 

“Oh, if you wish to read into it, I suppose there may be.” Sherlock felt his smile against his lips as he pulled him into a kiss. 

“Goodnight, John.”

“Goodnight, Sherlock.”

Sherlock wished, childishly, to himself, that this was not a dream. He hoped to whatever powers that be that he would wake up to the morning sun, and John Watson in his arms. 

It seems that some wishes made in darkness could indeed come to light. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! i love my boys very much.
> 
> follow me on tumblr and twitter:
> 
> @thegearsystem (twitter)  
> @beholdingrandom or @dandyholmes (tumblr)


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